Lorne Nystrom

[The Budget, December 11th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the budget presented yesterday is really one that contains an awful lot of smoke and mirrors in terms of the wizardry of the Minister of Finance. In fact, there are probably more tricks in this budget than there are in the Harry Potter movie. There is a lot of smoke and mirrors and a lot of bark but very little bite in this budget when it comes to what is really necessary for the people of this country.

The budget is really a budget of missed opportunities on the part of the federal government. The only thing the government addresses is the issue of national security and much of that was under pressure from the United States in terms of our national security budget, which will be $7.7 billion over the next six years. About $2.2 billion of that, though, will be recuperated in terms of a special fee or tax on air travellers in the country.

When I was travelling the country with the finance committee, person after person told us what they really wanted was economic security. The government has missed an opportunity to provide some economic security for the people of our country.

I ask this question: Where is the economic security for Canadian farmers who are suffering and leaving the land? A farm bill in the United States that has gone through the house of representatives will supply American farmers with $173 billion over the next 10 years if it goes through the senate and gets approved by the president. This money is on top of $70 billion already approved and spent in the last four years in the United States. American farmers get four times as much from their government as our farmers get in Canada. European farmers get seven times as much as our farmers. Where is the security for the farmers of Canada?

Where is the security for the 7.5% of the Canadian population that is unemployed? There is an accumulated surplus in the EI fund of $36 billion, much of which is used through general revenues to fund a tax cut for wealthy people and corporations. Where is the security for the unemployed? Why did the government not extend eligibility benefits? Why do we not make sure that the benefit period is extended? Most unemployed people now do not qualify for EI. In fact it is predicted that in Toronto about 80% of those who are unemployed worked in the service industry and will not qualify for unemployment insurance benefits. Where is the security for the unemployed in Canada?

Where is the economic security for our aboriginal people, the first nations of this country? The United Nations human resources index states that Canada is the third best nation to live in, but when using the same index for first nations people Canada becomes the 63rd best nation to live in. People are living in Third World conditions in Canada, yet there is no economic development and no economic security for them in this budget. Why is it not there?

Where is there something about the economic security of children in Canada? I remember very clearly that, twelve years ago, in 1989, one child in seven was living in poverty in our country. Now, twelve years later, the ratio is one child in five, or 20% of all children, living in poverty. Where is the security for children in Canada?

Where is the security for people who need housing? There are many people in need of housing. If we were to build houses in Canada it would create two and a half jobs per house. Where is this in the budget? This is also missing.

Where is there national security for our health system? Our health system has suffered substantial budgetary cuts, substantial cutbacks, in 1995, to the hands of the Minister of Finance. However, yesterday, there was absolutely nothing for our health system in the minister's budget.

Where in the budget is there security for people who need jobs in this country, for the 7.5% who are unemployed, for the 43,000 people that lost full time jobs last year? Then we have some 57,000 people who have part time jobs. Where is the vision for creating jobs?

Where is the security in this country for the environment? Where is the environmental security? Where is the commitment to Kyoto? Where are the funds to clean up waste disposal sites? Where is the money to look for alternative fuels and where is the money to retrofit buildings in this country? It is not there.

Where is that economic security? This is a budget of missed opportunities. I am surprised that the parliamentary secretary can sit there in the confidence that this is a good budget knowing his past record on some of these things.

What is the Liberal vision? Do they have a vision? They have a vision of a low wage, part time economy where there are jobs at Tim Hortons but not at IPSCO in Regina in the steel mill or at General Motors in Oshawa. That is the vision of the Liberal Party across the way.

The Liberal vision is one where the income gap in our country is widening each and every day but bank profits are going up despite a slow economy, with $9.3 billion in profits last year and $9.6 billion the year before. We see the constant vision of a deferral of investment in the human and physical infrastructure in this country which is in need of money now. We see a vision of a loss of sovereignty in our country and of giving more and more control of Canada to people who live outside our borders.

We see a vision of a smaller and smaller federal government. In the 1980s the government represented 16.4% of the GDP and now it is at 11.3%. This is the smallest it has been since 1949. It is a vision that is really an adoption of the Reform-Alliance agenda and the only thing that makes that budget look good across the way is the Alliance Party of Canada. Every morning when the Minister of Finance gets out of bed he gets up and says “Thank God for the Alliance, thank God for the Leader of the Opposition, thank God for the Reform Party and thank God for the former leader of the Reform Party of Canada,” because they are implementing their agenda. This is exactly where they want to go.

Our country needs a new vision. We need a vision where there is once again a role for the government in leading the way in helping plan a mixed economy. There is a role for the government and people realized that after September 11 and the problems with security.

There is also a role for the Bank of Canada to once again assume more of the national debt. At one time about 20% of the national debt was held by the Bank of Canada. The national debt is now down to 8% or 9%. This role of the bank would give the government more fiscal flexibility.

We need a vision in the country where jobs are the number one priority, where yesterday we would have spent 1% of our GDP in terms of investment on infrastructure, housing, social programs and agriculture. That has to be the priority of the government.

We need a vision of creating wealth in Canada by investing in education, training and skills because knowledge is power and knowledge is wealth in the future.

We need a vision where the role of small business is more important. Small business today creates 80% of the new jobs, and 80% of small businesses, by the way, have revenues of less than $1 million per year. That is where a lot of the action is.

We need a vision that has a dream of an environmental society and a sustainable environment in our country where we have a greener economy and a dream of social programs that are fully enhanced and fully funded to create more equality of conditions for all the people of Canada.

We also need a new international vision, where the IMF and the World Bank are democratically accountable to the people of the world and where the WTO is not the new world government and we worship at the altar of large corporations.

We need a vision of more foreign aid, a vision of a world economic development organization so that we could have a new Marshall Plan for places such as Europe and Afghanistan, a vision where we have a tax like the Tobin tax on currency speculation to fund international development and slow down the speculation in currency. This is the kind of vision we need.

I think we also need a vision of having the sovereignty and the independence of our country once again reclaimed, because we are losing our country. Chapter 11 of NAFTA, the national treatment clause of the trade deals, gives more rights to corporations than to people. People working in other countries require a working visa, but corporations can come in without any visa and dictate the rules and buy up our country at will. This has to be changed.

We are selling out our country. Even the boss of the Royal Bank, Gordon Nixon, for whom the member across the way used to work, said in Regina that in the last two and half years 20% of our publicly traded companies on the TSE had been sold out and that 23 of 35 companies on the oil and gas index on the TSE have been sold to foreigners, mainly Americans.

Since 1985 we have lost about 13,000 companies in this country. They were sold to foreigners, mainly in the United States. That includes these companies: MacMillan Bloedel, Tim Hortons, Shoppers Drug Mart, Gulf, Laura Secord chocolates, the CNR, and soon the CPR, and the Montreal Canadiens hockey team, sold to Gillette of the United States.

In addition to selling out our companies, we are privatizing. The government privatized the administration of Canada savings bonds to EDS of Texas last year on June 30, the day before Canada Day, the very symbol of our sovereignty.

In my last half minute, let me say that in the future we are in danger of losing our dollar, our loonie, our currency, as more and more people across the way, and the Reform and the Bloc, are talking about using a currency in common with the United States, the American dollar, which will be controlled by the Americans and the American federal reserve.

I will conclude by saying it was a budget of missed opportunities, but we have great potential to take control of our economy, to take control of our sovereignty and to make this country whole and great once again.

[The Budget, December 11th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Bloc Quebecois member too. The people of Canada have another need. I refer here to farmers and farm producers across Canada. There is nothing here at all for the farmers. I have looked through the whole thing. There are 300 pages. There is nothing at all.

Farmers throughout Quebec and in western Canada are facing a major crisis. I am thinking of farmers in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, who are involved in the production of wheat and so on.

What does the member propose for our farmers with regard to subsidies or federal government aid?

[The Economy, December 7th, 2001]

Such a defensive Deputy Prime Minister and defensive Minister of Industry, Mr. Speaker. The Liberal vision of a low wage, part time economy is a reality. Even in Toronto we now see tens of thousands of people about to be laid off in the hospitality industry. Meanwhile, bank profits are at a record high despite the downward trend in the economy.

The minister knows 80% of new jobs are created by small business. What will the Minister of Finance do to help small business create jobs and put Canadian people back to work? What will he do about that?

[The Economy, December 7th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the November unemployment rate is up and we have seen the replacement of 57,000 full time jobs by 43,000 part time jobs. The Liberal vision of a low wage part time economy is a reality. There is a widening income gap between the rich and the poor.

Is there any minister across the way who is willing to stand up to the Liberal minister who is a conservative Minister of Finance and call for a jobs budget for Canadian people instead of a budget for corporate Canada? Is any minister willing to do that, including the Minister of Industry?

[Taxation, December 5th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the auditor general reported that in one recent year some 20 wealthy foreign actors evaded an estimated $10 million in taxes. Why did the Government of Canada ignore this $10 million in taxes that could have gone to paying for social programs and who gave the order not to collect?

I know that there is no business like show business, but why did it take until June of this year to close the tax loophole to prevent this outrage from happening again in the future? Why did it take so long to close that loophole?

[Canada Elections Act, December 4th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, there is no doubt the member presenting the bill is motivated by good intentions but I do not feel inclined to support a bill to have a none of the above choice on the ballot itself.

In today's election campaigns one can vote for none of the above just by not voting at all. One can write none of the above on it if one wishes. One can spoil the ballot if wants to. However I do not think we should be offering a choice where one can vote for none of the above. We should be doing positive things to encourage people to turn out for the election campaign, to vote in campaigns, to make a choice, to vote for a vision of the country and to do a positive thing rather than a negative thing. That is the way we should go.

That being said, this debate gives an opportunity to say we need some voting reform in the country. We have tried going with a permanent voters list and I do not think that is working. A lot of people were left off the list in every riding of the country.

My recollection is that there were about one million Canadians who were not on the voters list in the November 2000 election. We should go back to the door to door enumeration of people in the campaign. It is a way to motivate the population to vote. It is a way to make sure that those not on the list get on it.

If we look at the lack of participation, we find that it is greatest among people living in poorer communities and in the inner cities, and among young people who tend to move a lot and have different addresses on a very frequent basis.

One of the changes we should make is the permanent voters list in the country. I heard that all over the place in my riding during the last campaign. I have heard it from colleagues from all the parties in the House since then. It is important that kind of change be made in terms of voting practices in Canada.

I am concerned about the plummeting drop in turnout. It was not long ago in the 1950s through to the 1980s when 75% or 80% of the people would vote. I was shocked in 1997, four years ago, when the turnout was only 67%.

Last fall the turnout dropped even lower. It went down to only 61% of the people on the list who actually voted. If we include people who were not enumerated on the permanent voters list, and many people say there were about one million of them, we find that well under 60% of the population who were over the age of 18 and were Canadian citizens participated in the last election campaign.

We have to do something to motivate people to vote. Why do people not vote? Part of the problem is the need for reform of the parliamentary system and reform of the voting system in the country. Our parliament is in dire need of radical reform to make this place more meaningful, accountable and democratic.

The Prime Minister's Office has far too much power. Almost every vote in the House of Commons is a confidence vote. Parliamentary committees do not have enough power. Individual MPs do not have much power. There are too many confidence votes and not enough free votes. Government appointments are made without any kind of ratification process in the opposition.

The public accounts committee today heard from the auditor general. One of the complaints was the lack of parliamentary oversight for many spending programs, like the employment insurance program.

More and more decisions are made by the executive, by the Prime Minister's Office and the Privy Council Office.

We have to make a change to democratize the place, to make sure that on major appointments for example the government will nominate and have the relevant committee of the House of Commons either ratify or reject the nomination. Committees and MPs should be given a more meaningful role. Committees should be given more independence and the right to initiate legislation and timetable it. We should have rules and regulations like in Great Britain where parliament can defeat government bills and the government does not fall.

In Britain, despite the popularity years ago of the Margaret Thatcher government, several government bills were defeated. It is the same thing in Tony Blair's government despite his popularity. Government bills have been defeated and the only consequence is that the bills are defeated. The government does not fall. It is healthy for parliamentary democracy.

Time and again I talked to Liberal backbenchers who are extremely frustrated with the Prime Minister's Office, the PCO or cabinet but they cannot do anything about it because of the kind of system we have. The Prime Minister appoints all the cabinet ministers and the parliamentary secretaries. The government appoints all the committee chairs. There is also parliamentary travel and parliamentary associations.

When we have that kind of handcuffed parliamentary system, the voters see it for what it is, that it is not democratic. They feel that politicians are not listening to them and that all politicians and political parties are the same. That is why we need serious parliamentary reform in this institution.

The last point is voting reform. We are one of the few democracies in the world where the will of the people is not accurately reflected in the House of Commons. Most countries in the world have a measure of proportional representation, where if a party has 20% of the votes, it gets 20% of the seats in that parliamentary institution.

There are only three countries in the world now with more than eight million people where there is not some measure of proportional representation. The United States is one, we are another one and India is the third. When we do not have proportional representation, we get all kinds of distortions in the system.

South of the border last year Al Gore had 550,000 more votes than George W. Bush. Who became the president? George W. Bush. There was an election in New Brunswick back in the 1980s when Frank McKenna was the premier. He got 55% or 60% of the votes, something in that range, and he had 100% of the seats. People who voted for the other parties had zero representation in the legislature.

Even in this parliament the Prime Minister's party got 41% of the votes cast and 60% of the people cast a ballot. However with 41% of the votes cast, he has a mandate constitutionally for five years. The opposition represent roughly 60% of the electorate, yet the opposition is in the minority.

There can be a distortion between parties. I think of 1993 when the Conservative Party had 16% or 17% of the votes and had two MPs. In the 1997 election the Tories and the Reform both had 19% of the votes. There were 60 Reformers and some 20 Conservatives. The NDP and the Bloc each had 11% of the vote. The NDP had 21 seats and the Bloc Quebecois had 44 seats. These distortions happen time and time again.

An analysis was done of the last election. I cannot remember the exact numbers now but it took something like 65,000 Canadians to elect the average Liberal member of parliament. For the NDP it was 97,000. For the Conservative Party it was 130,000.

Everybody's vote is not equal. Everybody's vote is not the same. We need a parliamentary system where the will of the people is represented and reflected in the parliamentary body that governs the people. That is what most countries in the world have when they have a measure of PR.

Even Britain with its longstanding parliamentary system is starting to move in that direction. The Scottish parliament, the Welsh parliament and the Irish parliament have some proportional representation. All of the MPs elected to the European parliament in Strasbourg are elected by proportional representation. In Great Britain Tony Blair has promised a referendum on a measure or model of PR in Westminster itself before the next election campaign, which is due in about three and a half to four years.

The bill before us today gives us an opportunity to talk about voting reform so we would have a parliamentary system that reflects the will of the people. We should encourage the people to participate in much greater numbers. It would mean that if one cast a vote for a political party, one's vote would count. Everybody's vote would be equal. Nobody's vote would be wasted. That is the kind of parliamentary system we need.

I close by saying that the time has come when we should strike an all party committee to look at the various models of proportional representation that would be relevant to our unique federation. My preference would be what I call a mixed member proportional like Germany has, where some members are elected riding by riding and some members are elected in accordance with proportional representation. There are 13 countries in the world that have a mixed member proportional. That is the direction we should be going in.

The important thing is to strike a committee to look at reforming the electoral system. Let us get back to door to door enumeration. Let us reform the House of Commons. Let us abolish the unelected Senate. If we did those kinds of things, more people would have confidence and faith in the parliamentary system. They would be willing to participate in election campaigns. It is extremely important that people participate and fulfill a responsibility which many people died fighting wars for.

I had an uncle who was killed in the second world war in Normandy fighting for freedom and democracy. Many people in the House have family and friends who have died in great wars fighting for democracy.

Let us not take democracy for granted. Let us get out there and vote, but let us reform our parliamentary institutions and voting system.

[Supply, December 4th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, about three weeks ago, 100 economists came out with a proposal that we stimulate the economy through the kind of plan I am advocating today. The money is there. The federal government last year for example put $17 billion on the national debt. It has a plan to cut taxes by $100 billion. It is a matter of priorities. It is matter of balance.

A lot of people in the country feel that 1% of our GDP is not too much to spend in terms of creating jobs and stimulating the economy. The parliamentary secretary is the economist in the House. Much of that money comes back to the federal government anyway in terms of the increased economic activity, in terms of increased taxes for the federal government, less money going into EI, less money transferred to the provinces in terms of social assistance and welfare.

A lot of economists feel this way. The parliamentary secretary was at all of those parliamentary hearings too. He knows that the people coming before the committee say that we have to once again rebuild the human infrastructure, address the human deficit. I do not think $10 billion is too much for that. It is a matter of priorities.

[Supply, December 4th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I do not think the member was listening. I am not talking about increasing taxes. I never used those words at all.

I want a fair taxation system where people pay taxes on their ability to pay according to their wealth. We do not have a fair taxation system. There has been a narrowing of the tax rate where the wealthier people have been getting bigger and bigger breaks all the time.

We have to increase the wealth in Canada, create jobs, stimulate the economy. Investing $10 billion in the economy in terms of stimulating jobs, creates $1.6 billion worth of growth. Much of that money comes back to the federal government in terms of taxes, with fewer people on unemployment insurance and fewer people on welfare.

It is the kind of thing that the Bush administration is doing in the United States, for goodness sake. A right wing republican government is stimulating the economy trying to create jobs, not just in the cleanup of Manhattan and not just in the war effort. I mentioned the farm bill as one example of that, $173 billion. People should realize what kind of money that is; $173 billion U.S. over 10 years and the stimulus that it has in terms of the farm economy. One could go on and on.

I look at the motion before the House. It is there for anybody to see. There are six points in the Alliance motion, six priorities. I assume when it lists six points, those are its six priorities. Do I see agriculture in there? No. There is no reference to the farm crisis, no reference to agriculture, no reference whatsoever to rural Canada. That is the evidence. In the six points of the Alliance Party there is not one word, not one mention of the farm crisis or building up rural Canada and rural infrastructure. I say shame on the Alliance, but at least we know where that party stands.

[Supply, December 4th, 2001]

The same vision, in the same big bed, of where they want to take the country.

This was confirmed a few minutes ago in a surprising way by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance when he was boasting that this is now the smallest federal government in Canada since the second world war. He said it in a very boastful way. I thought he was a progressive Liberal. I thought he was on the left wing of the Liberal Party, but he is not. He is very proud of these Reform Alliance policies about a very small and shrinking federal government, a shrinking violet that is afraid to tackle the issues and problems of the day. That is what the minister said.

I know that even some western reformers like my friend from Souris--Moose Mountain are really concerned about the diminishing role of the federal government in the country because he, like I, wants the federal government to play a more major role in health care, in helping the farmers of the country, in public education and in investing in our economy. What do we have instead? We have the agenda of the Reform Alliance being adopted by the Minister of Finance, and the parliamentary secretary, a so-called progressive, bragging about and endorsing that as the right and proper thing to do.

Instead, the federal government should have a people's agenda and a people's budget and make jobs a priority in terms of reinvesting in the economy. What the minister did last year was to have a $100 billion tax cut over five years, much of it for the wealthy and large corporations. What we should be doing now is injecting into the economy 1% of the GDP, or about $10 billion, in areas that will help people and create jobs. That is the priority.

I went to every single one of finance committee hearings across the country and I can tell you, Mr. Speaker, there are very few people out there, except for some people in the Alliance Party, asking for even greater tax cuts, for even more money to pay down the national debt. What the people are saying instead is that there is a human deficit in the country, a social deficit in the country, and that money should be invested in terms of addressing that human deficit and we should do it in four or five areas.

We should be putting money into infrastructure in the country. We should be putting more money into affordable housing. When a house is built, 2.8 person years of work is created. First of all, housing is needed in the country. Social housing, affordable housing, is badly needed. This would also create jobs and stimulate the economy. We need more money for urban transit. We need more money in terms of environmental cleanup, clean water and water treatment plants. We need more money in terms of transportation in general. We need more money in terms of agriculture.

When the government was trying to address the problem of the deficit, which was extremely important and had to be addressed, it cut back on farm support programs, by almost $2 billion since 1993. That is $2 billion, a cutback that is approaching 50% of what the federal government used to pay to the farmers in terms of support programs across Canada.

The government is doing this in the face of tremendous assistance from the Americans for the American farmer. There is now a new U.S. farm bill that has been approved by the house of representatives and is about to be approved shortly by the senate in the United States. It will put an extra $173 billion into the farm economy of the United States over 10 years. That is $173 billion U.S. of extra money in the American economy to stimulate the American farm economy. That is on top of the $70 billion already spent in the last four years. The same thing is happening in Europe. There are massive amounts of aid for European farmers. Our farmers cannot compete and are going out of business. When farmers go out of business, small towns suffer and die and jobs are lost right across the country.

What we need is a people's budget, a jobs budget that will stimulate the economy. We need a stimulus budget which puts $10 billion in the next fiscal year into the creation of jobs into areas where the jobs are needed, into infrastructure, environmental cleanup, water treatment plants, affordable housing, urban transit and transit in general, and the farm economy. In addition, the federal government needs to put more money into the health system and public education. That is what has to be done.

The other issue is employment insurance. My colleague from Acadie--Bathurst will speak on that in a few minutes. Again many changes have to be made to protect people who are being thrown out of work. The majority of workers do not even qualify for employment insurance benefits now.

Those should be the priorities of the government. Those are very important things the government should be doing.

The other point I want to make in this short amount of time is that I am really concerned about the sovereignty of our country. The government should start to address that in next Monday's budget.

Even the new president of the Royal Bank when he spoke in Regina very recently expressed concern about the loss of sovereignty in our country. He talked about the fact that in the last two and a half years around 20% of the companies listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange had been sold to foreigners, many of them Americans. He talked about the fact that around two-thirds of the 33 or 35 gas and oil companies on the TSE had been sold to foreigners, again many of them Americans. He talked about the hollowing out of corporate Canada and the fact that the head office jobs are going to the United States. That is where the decisions are being made and where the research and development is being done.

That was from the president of the Royal Bank. He reflected the growing feeling that we are losing Canada, that we are selling out our heritage. More and more companies are being taken over, thousands in the last few years. The chapter 11 part of NAFTA and the national treatment clause have really gouged out our sovereignty in terms of being able to protect Canadian business and Canadian people in terms of a strong and sovereign Canada.

The federal government is giving away our country. A good example of that was on June 30 when the federal government and the Bank of Canada announced that they were privatizing the administration of Canada savings bonds. Imagine that, privatizing the administration of Canada savings bonds. I am sure, Mr. Speaker, it makes you tremble sitting there in the chair that that vestige of our country's sovereignty is being privatized, not to a Canadian firm but to EDS, an American firm based in Texas. Now when we buy Canada savings bonds, we deal with two phone banks, one based in Mississauga and one here in Ottawa. Why would the bank privatize the administration of Canada savings bonds to an American company?

There is example after example of how our country is being taken over and is being sold out. If we do not do something about it, we are going to lose this country of ours in the next few years.

Many members in the Liberal Party, the Bloc and the Alliance Party are talking about the use of a common currency, a common dollar between Canada and the United States. It will not be like the Euro in Europe where it is a brand new currency with a brand new central bank, where there is some institutional accountability to a European government and the European Community and where three or four larger countries counterbalance each other. It will not be that at all. However, if we keep going the way we are going now, there will be one currency. It will be the American dollar controlled by the national reserve in the United States and all the accountability will be with Washington and the United States congress.

If we lose our currency, if we lose our sovereignty, we are not going to have anything left but a shell. That is the way we are going with more and more members of the Liberal Party across the way, some members of the Alliance and the Bloc Quebecois talking about the use of a common dollar and a common currency, the use of the American greenback in this country.

The time has come for the Minister of Finance to make it very clear that we are not going down that road, that we are going to keep our currency, that we are going to have control of our monetary policy. He must make it clear that we are going to have a new fiscal policy and that the priority of that fiscal policy is going to address the human deficit. The human deficit has been soaring since the massive cutbacks by the federal government.

The parliamentary secretary across the way was boasting about the small and shrinking federal government. As the federal government shrinks and gets smaller, the human deficit, the number of people on social welfare, the number of people who are suffering in terms of low wages is getting larger and larger. We now have the highest household debt we have ever had. Credit card interest rates are extremely high.

Those are the things that have to be addressed. That is what the budget should say when it comes down on December 10. I do not think the Alliance is going the right way. It wants even smaller government, bigger tax cuts and it does not even mention the farm crisis. It wants less and less government. The federal government has a role to play. Let us play it on behalf of the Canadian people.

[Supply, December 4th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I will split my time with the member for Acadie--Bathurst.

What we have before the House today is a motion that will crystallize debate before the budget the Minister of Finance will bring down next week. I point out at the outset that this year after the finance committee hearings we have a unique situation. We have the Alliance Party and the Conservative Party both making supplementary comments but agreeing with a majority report. Only the Bloc Quebecois and the NDP filed a minority report. In essence, we have a vision of three Conservative parties, the Alliance, the Liberals and the Conservatives, with the same vision--